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Judith Lewis Herman

Judith Lewis Herman Quotes

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Famous Judith Lewis Herman Quotes

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.”

SilencePowerAbuseCriminalsChild AbuseSexual AbuseRapeSecrecyAttackingCredibilityAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsAbuse Of PowerAbusersPerpetratorsSociety DenialBacklashAllegationsSurvivors Of AbuseRepressed MemoriesRecovered MemoriesRapistsTrauma MemoriesSilencing DissentSurvivor Of AbuseAttacking PeopleFalse Memory Syndrome MythLack Of AccountabilitySilencing Children
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom. The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness, which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called "doublethink," and which mental health professionals, searching for calm, precise language, call "dissociation." It results in protean, dramatic, and often bizarre symptoms of hysteria which Freud recognized a century ago as disguised communications about sexual abuse in childhood. . . .”

MindWisdomTruthHumanityHealingConsciousnessPowerPsychologySocietyCrimeAbuseMurderMemoryTraumaGravesHorribleRecoveryDenialGhostsPtsdRapeRestorationDissociationAtrocitiesUnspeakableSurvivorsVictimsSociety DenialFreudDissociativePosttraumatic Stress DisorderRepressed MemoryPsychological TraumaSigmund FreudTrauma TherapyRecovered MemoryViolations
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“Traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. Those who have survived learn that their sense of self, of worth, of humanity, depends upon a feeling of connection with others. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group re-creates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity. Repeatedly in the testimony of survivors there comes a moment when a sense of connection is restored by another person’s unaffected display of generosity. Something in herself that the victim believes to be irretrievably destroyed---faith, decency, courage---is reawakened by an example of common altruism. Mirrored in the actions of others, the survivor recognizes and reclaims a lost part of herself. At that moment, the survivor begins to rejoin the human commonality...”

FaithHumanityCommunityHealingCourageSocietyAbuseVictimAffectionRecoveryGenerosityConnectionBelongingSurvivorIsolatedRejectedAltruismPtsdDecencyAbuse SurvivorsOutcastInhumanSurvivorsBondingInhumanityBondHealing InsightsTraumatic ExperiencesBondsTraumatizedDehumanizationInhumaneRecovery From AbuseHealing AbuseConnection With PeopleDehumanisationLoss Of SelfVictimizedNo Longer HumanDehumanizeDehumanizedInhumane TreatmentFeeling HumanLoss Of Social InteractionReclaiming DignityReclaiming Your Life
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is shaped by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator.”

HealingAbuseVictimTraumaPrisonerPowerlessPtsdDomestic ViolenceAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsPowerlessnessCaptivityHealing InsightsBelief SystemComplex PtsdHealing From AbuseRecovery From AbuseAbuserCore BeliefsStockholm SyndromeTraumatic StressIntimate Partner ViolencePerpetratorBelie
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“By developing a contaminated, stigmatized identity, the child victim takes the evil of the abuser into herself and thereby preserves her primary attachments to her parents. Because the inner sense of badness preserves a relationship, it is not readily given up even after the abuse has stopped; rather, it becomes a stable part of the child's personality structure.”

IdentityPersonalityAbuseBetrayalAttachmentChild AbuseIncestVictimsComplex PtsdBetrayal TraumaParental AbusePersonality DisorderStigmatizationSelf Stigma
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“Father-daughter incest is not only the type of incest most frequently reported but also represents a paradigm of female sexual victimization. The relationship between father and daughter, adult male and female child, is one of the most unequal relationships imaginable. It is no accident that incest occurs most often precisely in the relationship where the female is most powerless. The actual sexual encounter may be brutal or tender, painful or pleasurable; but it is always, inevitably, destructive to the child. The father, in effect, forces the daughter to pay with her body for affection and care which should be freely given. p4”

FatherPowerAbuseTraumaBetrayalChild AbusePowerlessBetrayedSexual AbuseAbuse Of PowerIncestVictimizationPatriarchPatriarchalDysfunctional Relationship
Book:Father-Daughter Incest
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“Underlying the attack on psychotherapy, I believe, is a recognition of the potential power of any relationship of witnessing. The consulting room is a privileged space dedicated to memory. Within that space, survivors gain the freedom to know and tell their stories. Even the most private and confidential disclosure of past abuses increases the likelihood of eventual public disclosure. And public disclosure is something that perpetrators are determined to prevent. As in the case of more overtly political crimes, perpetrators will fight tenaciously to ensure that their abuses remain unseen, unacknowledged, and consigned to oblivion. The dialectic of trauma is playing itself out once again. It is worth remembering that this is not the first time in history that those who have listened closely to trauma survivors have been subject to challenge. Nor will it be the last. In the past few years, many clinicians have had to learn to deal with the same tactics of harassment and intimidation that grassroots advocates for women, children and other oppressed groups have long endured. We, the bystanders, have had to look within ourselves to find some small portion of the courage that victims of violence must muster every day. Some attacks have been downright silly; many have been quite ugly. Though frightening, these attacks are an implicit tribute to the power of the healing relationship. They remind us that creating a protected space where survivors can speak their truth is an act of liberation. They remind us that bearing witness, even within the confines of that sanctuary, is an act of solidarity. They remind us also that moral neutrality in the conflict between victim and perpetrator is not an option. Like all other bystanders, therapists are sometimes forced to take sides. Those who stand with the victim will inevitably have to face the perpetrator's unmasked fury. For many of us, there can be no greater honor. p.246 - 247 Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. February, 1997”

FearHealingPowerCourageHonorAbuseBraveryVictimRecoveryTherapySurvivorOppressedPsychotherapySurvivorsAbuse Of PowerVictimsVictimizationTrauma SurvivorsVictim BlamingAbused WomenFalse MemoryAttacksSurvivorship
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and that joins the victim and witness in a common alliance. For the individual victim, this social context is created by relationships with friends, lovers, and family. For the larger society, the social context is created by political movements that give voice to the disempowered.”

AbuseVictimTraumaWitnessPtsdSexual AbuseChild Sexual AbuseAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsSociety DenialPerpetrator
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“Recovery can take place only within then context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation. In her renewed connection with other people, the survivor re-creates the psychological facilities that were damaged or deformed by the traumatic experience. These faculties include the basic operations of trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy. Just as these capabilities are formed in relationships with other people, they must be reformed in such relationships. The first principle of recovery is empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure. Many benevolent and well-intentioned attempts to assist the survivor founder because this basic principle of empowerment is not observed. No intervention that takes power away from the survivor can possibly foster her recovery, no matter how much it appears to be in her immediate best interest.”

RelationshipsHealingAbuseTraumaRecoveryIsolationSurvivorPtsdSexual AbuseRapeChild Sexual AbuseHealthy RelationshipsComplex PtsdComplex Trauma
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“This book appears at a time when public discussion of the common atrocities of sexual and domestic life has been made possible by the women’s movement, and when public discussion of the common atrocities of political life has been made possible by the movement for human rights. I expect the book to be controversial—first, because it is written from a feminist perspective; second, because it challenges established diagnostic concepts; but third and perhaps most importantly, because it speaks about horrible things, things that no one really wants to hear about.”

AbuseHuman RightsFeministTraumaTerrorismTortureWomen S RightsPtsdDomestic ViolenceSexual AbuseControversialAtrocitiesUnspeakablePolitical LifeSociety DenialChallenging Status QuoHuman Rights ViolationsHorror Of WarPosttraumatic Stress DisorderTraumatic StressDenial Of AbuseDenial Of Child AbuseWomen S MovementDenial Of IncestHorror Of RapeHorror Of Life
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“Authoritarian, secretive, sometimes grandiose, and even paranoid, the perpetrator is nevertheless exquisitely sensitive to the realities of power and to social norms. Only rarely does he get into difficulties with the law; rather, he seeks out situations where his tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired. His demeanor provides an excellent camouflage, for few people believe that extraordinary crimes can be committed by men of such conventional appearance.”

AbuseTyrannyAuthoritarianismDomestic Abusers
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“I have tried to communicate my ideas in a language that preserves connections, a language that is faithful both to the dispassionate, reasoned traditions of my profession and to the passionate claims of people who have been violated and outraged. I have tried to find a language that can withstand the imperatives of doublethink and allows all of us to come a little closer to facing the unspeakable.”

AbuseTraumaRecoveryRapeUnspeakableTraumatic ExperiencesComplex PtsdHorror Of WarDoublethinkViolationsViolatedDouble ThinkHorror Of RapeViolations Of Human RightsHorror Of IncestAtrocitisTrauma And Recovery
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”

IfsTryingDoeOrderForgetSilenceFailingCrimeAbuseVictimCriminalsAccountabilityAssaultSecrecyCredibilityPsychiatristEscapingSexual AssaultPerpetrators
Book:Trauma and recovery
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“The guarantee of safety in a battering relationship can never be based upon a promise from the perpetrator, no matter how heartfelt. Rather, it must be based upon the self-protective capability of the victim. Until the victim has developed a detailed and realistic contingency plan and has demonstrated her ability to carry it out, she remains in danger of repeated abuse.”

SelfMatterAbilityPlansDangerPromiseAbuseSafetyVictimRemainsGuaranteesRealisticCapabilityProtectiveHeartfeltPerpetratorsContingencyVictimizationBatteringBattered WomenContingency Plans
Author:Judith Lewis Herman
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